I couldn’t help but chuckle when I came across this little gem:
Three sons left home, went out on their own and prospered. Getting back together, they discussed the gifts they were able to give their elderly mother.
The first said, “I built a big house for our mother.”
The second said, “I sent her a Mercedes with a driver.”
The third smiled and said, “I’ve got you both beat. You remember how mom enjoyed reading the Bible? And you know she can’t see very well. So I sent her a remarkable parrot that recites the entire Bible. It took elders in the church 12 years to teach him. He’s one of a kind. Mama just has to name the chapter and verse, and the parrot recites it.”
Soon thereafter, mom sent out her letters of thanks:
“Milton,” she wrote one son, “The house you built is so huge. I live in only one room, but I have to clean the whole house.”
“Gerald,” she wrote to another, “I am too old to travel. I stay most of the time at home, so I rarely use the Mercedes. And the driver is so rude!”
“Dearest Donald,” she wrote to her third son, “You have the good sense to know what your mother likes. The chicken was delicious.
And finally: this August has 5 Sundays, 5 Mondays, 5 Tuesdays, all in one month. This happens once every 823 years. And at 6 min & 7 sec after 5am on the 9th of August this year it was 05:06:07 08-09-10. And this won’t happen again until year 3010!
Have a blessed Lord’s Day and we hope to see you tonight for some fellowship at our open house.
Here on the back page last week we saw that Ezekiel communicated to the exiles in a powerful vision in chapters 8-11 – the vision where Ezekiel was transported to Jerusalem and the glory of God left the Temple. And we saw that one of the many lessons in Ezekiel is the sober warning it gives to not forget that there is a limit to what God will endure from his people.
This week I want to begin by asking a question: do you relate to Israel? Can you related the message of this book to your and relationship with God today?
Please consider this question as I call our attention to chapters 33-37 which record oracles related to the fall of Jerusalem. Although the warnings and calls for repentance continue we can now sense a rising note of comfort. As long as the exiles found it difficult to believe that Jerusalem could fall, Ezekiel was full of warning. Once the fall has taken place, God in his mercy gives Ezekiel words that will comfort the exilic community, encourage them, and nurture their faith.
Before that turning point arrives, the first half of the chapter returns to a theme first introduced in 3:16–21: Ezekiel as the watchman. The theme returns because Ezekiel now begins a new phase in his ministry, because the news he is about to deliver regarding the fall of Jerusalem provides the people with a new opportunity to repent and trust God.
The first half of the chapter 33 (verses 1-20) divides naturally into two themes. On the one hand, God reminds the prophet of his awful responsibility as a watchman (33:1–9). He is committed to standing somewhat apart from his fellow exiles. He must keep a vigil, listen to God, and proclaim faithfully what God tells him to say, warning of judgments to come and eliciting faith in God’s faithfulness. On the other hand, the people are called to respond to the watchman’s warnings (33:10–20). They are neither to trust their own righteousness nor to slide into fatalism. The appropriate response is always to heed God’s watchman, for God himself is the One who declares: “As surely as I live…I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?” (33:11).
But sadly the news arrives: Jerusalem has fallen (33:22). Ezekiel is now released from the silence God earlier imposed. He can now converse openly and can say things other than what was given to him as a prophet. But all that he says in the rest of this chapter are more words from the Lord – but along two (2) lines of thought. And I want to challenge us to consider each of these and the parallels to them in the church today.
Ezekiel first deals with the people left among the ruins of Jerusalem: they are ever the optimists. They think they will reestablish themselves, even though they have not renounced their sins. So God will continue his chastening until there is only desolation, so that they will learn that he is the Lord (33:23–29).
The second group of people that Ezekiel deals with are the exiles. It’s clear they have learned to enjoy listening to him, as one enjoys listening to a gifted orator – but they have not learned to repent.
Please consider yet another lesson from Ezekiel: to which group can we relate?
Christians that enjoy learning about or studying prophecy almost always enjoy Ezekiel and yet, at the same time, many Christians are intimidated by the book. Because of this difficulty, I want to devote the next few Sundays on the back page sharing some insights into the book.
One helpful thing to remember when reading and studying Ezekiel is this: Ezekiel was an exilic prophet – meaning he prophesied while the inhabitants of the southern kingdom (Judah) that had survived Babylon’s invasion were living in exile in Babylon. When reading Ezekiel and Daniel remember: they both lived in Babylon and prophesied while living there.
Nebuchadnezzar came up against Jerusalem at the beginning of his reign and took select young people back to Babylon to be trained at his court. Among them was Daniel. A few years later, when Jerusalem rebelled, Nebuchadnezzar took many of the nobility of the city to Babylon and resettled them in comfortable dwellings along the Chebar canal. Among them was a young priest named Ezekiel. Five years later God appeared to Ezekiel in a vision of the holy chariot of cherubim (chapter 1) anointing him to be a prophet to the people in exile.
There are basically three main divisions to the book and part one is devoted to the message that God was going to destroy Jerusalem. For several years Ezekiel preached this message, but sadly and tragically the exiles didn’t listen. Jerusalem continued to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar, and finally Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city – the aftermath of which Jeremiah witnessed and lamented in the Book of Lamentations.
Ezekiel communicated to the exiles in a powerful vision in chapters 8-11. In this vision Ezekiel was transported to Jerusalem. As he entered the north gate of the city, he saw people committing idolatry there. As he entered the north gate of the temple, he saw more idolatry. He even saw the leaders and priests worshiping the gods of Egypt. And this took place before the face of God in the temple!
Subsequently God told Ezekiel that he had been pushed to the limit. Ezekiel saw God proclaim judgment on the defiled temple and city. Those to be saved were marked out, and the rest destroyed. Meanwhile the glory cloud of God ascended (went up – left) from the Holy of Holies. God moved to the threshold of the temple and called for fire to be poured out on the city. Then God’s cloud representing His glory mounted the chariot and flew off to the east, stopping once on the Mount of Olives, and then leaving the city desolate and exposed to Nebuchadnezzar – God’s unwitting servant.
There are many, many lessons to be learned from this amazing book, and one of them is that Ezekiel’s vision of the departing glory of God is a sober warning to not forget that there is a limit to what God will endure from His people.
I trust most of you had a few minutes to read through Lamentations this week in preparation for this morning’s message (maybe even more than once!) Our text for this morning’s message will be 3:22-23 and I wanted to mention a couple of things here about what we will be covering in today’s message.
For one, it’s often difficult for people to decide whether the first part of Lamentations 3 describes the experience of an individual (perhaps Jeremiah), or if the individual is a figure representing the entire nation as it has been forced into catastrophic defeat, poverty, and exile.
Several lines in the chapter favor Jeremiah as the person being described. For example in 3:14 the individual in chapter 3 has become the laughingstock “of all my people” rather than of the surrounding peoples.
But more important than deciding this issue is the striking way in which “hope” or “confidence” twice break out in the midst of the most appalling distress.
The first instance is in 3:22-27. Despite the horrible devastation, the writer says: “Because of the Lord ’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail” (3:22). Israel’s sins at this point in their history more judgment than they are facing. They might have been wiped out – as in the Flood or Sodom and Gomorrah. Only the Lord’s mercy prevented that from happening. However great their sufferings, the fact that they still exist testifies to the Lord’s graciousness toward them. God’s mercies renew themselves in our experience every day (3:23). Besides, the faithful will surely insist that what they want the most is not the Lord’s blessings but the Lord himself: “I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him’ ” (3:24). This is a moral stance: it signals the end of the self-sufficiency and self-focus that thought it could thumb its nose at God. What is the result? The Lord’s chastening is having its desired effect: it is driving people back to God.
A second aspect of hope is a retrospective on the preliminary ways in which the Lord has already answered (3:55-57) – which then becomes a plea for vindication (3:58–64). The stark simplicity of the first of these two passages is profoundly compelling, the heritage of many believers who have passed through dark waters: “I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit. You heard my plea: ‘Do not close your ears to my cry for relief.’ You came near when I called you, and you said, ‘Do not fear’ ” (3:55–57). The prayer for vindication that follows (3:58-64) must not be reduced to bitter vengeance. If God is just, then in the same way that he has chastened his own covenant people, he must mete out justice to those who have cruelly attacked others – even if it is that very attack that God has providentially deployed to chasten his own people. God himself elsewhere insists on this same point (see such passages as Isaiah 10:5ff).
It is my prayer that Lamentations will be a book we can all return to often when we found ourselves in the “valley of the shadow of death.” God has promised his people: no trial will overtake us that he has not prepared a way of escape! (1st Cor. 10:13)
The prayer: “My God, why … ?” is not an unknown prayer among Christians. Why did she contract cancer? Why was I fired? Why does God seem to forget us? Yet Jesus, having uttered My God, why … ? on the cross, then whispered “It is finished” – signaling not only the end of his suffering, but the completion of his work.
Irene Ferrel graduated from the Bible Institute of Los Angeles with a burden for overseas missions. She found her place in the Congo (Zaire), where for 10 years she taught school, shared Christ, and worked in a dispensary in the Kwilu bush.
In 1964, Communist rebels mounted guerrilla raids to overthrow the government. Missionaries in the Kwilu Province were threatened. Irene and her co-worker Ruth Hege decided to evacuate from their station. A helicopter was ordered, and on January 24, 1964, the two prepared to leave.
They packed essential belongings then gathered their Congolese workers for a final time of worship, Irene playing the organ. The final songs died down, the last prayers were offered, and the women began anticipating the chopper’s arrival. When it didn’t come, they decided to retire and rise early to await it the next day.
Shortly after midnight, young, intoxicated rebels attacked. The youngsters, some barely teenagers, were smoking hemp, smashing windows, and screaming for blood. Storming the house, they dragged the women from their beds and danced around them in wild circles in the moonlight. One youth shot an arrow into Irene’s neck. With her last ounce of strength she pulled it out, whispering, “I am finished,” and died.
Ruth Hege, also struck by arrows, pretended to be dead, not even moving when one of the rebels jerked out a handful of her hair. Only after the attackers finally ran into the forest could Ruth crawl to safety.
Many other Christians perished during the 1960s Congolese turmoil, including both Protestant and Catholic missionaries. It was a killing time. Why was the helicopter late? Why do God’s servants sometimes perish? Rest assured we will understand someday. Till then we trust, knowing his kindness never fails.
We tell our self: “I am finished! I can’t count on the Lord to do anything for me.” Sometimes just thinking of our troubles and our lonely wandering makes us miserable. That’s all we ever think about, and are depressed. One of the lessons in Lamentations is we can then do what the prophet Jeremiah did and remember something that can and will fill us with hope. The Lord’s kindness never fails! (Lamentations 3:18-22)
It’s not unusual for people to struggle with forgiveness – forgiving others and even God’s forgiveness of them. A great Psalm to meditate in this regard is Psalm 103 – the Psalm we are being introduced in this morning’s message. During my study this week I came across the story of a man caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic in a large city – and while creeping along and smelling the smog he realized that his mind was also inhaling a dense cloud of “spiritual smog.” He wrote:
“Feelings of guilt filtered through my heart like toxic fumes, choking it with regret and raw memories. I was en route to an early morning breakfast, and hadn’t slept well. Too much was on my mind. Too busy. My defenses were low, and the poisonous vapors seeped in.I recalled a cruel word that I had written about a woman who was now dead. I saw the face of a man, name forgotten, whom I had struck in a moment’s passion. I remembered my failure to witness to a neighbor who later committed suicide. Acts, thoughts, and habits, some only recently confessed to God, came to mind. I felt sick.”
Christians are often seized by guilt for sins that have been confessed and forgiven – to feel sadness, shame, lingering regret, or even depression over their sins that have already been confessed and forgiven. It’s one thing to confess sin isn’t it – it’s sometimes quite another to accept forgiveness.
In Psalm 38 David talked about his guilt overwhelming him like a burden too heavy to bear. He spoke of his wounds festering because of his sin. So appears that David, a man after God’s own heart, at times lived with regret.
But Psalm 103:12 says: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Consider that the distance between east and west is infinity – the two never meet. Charles Spurgeon wrote: “If sin be removed so far, then we may be sure that the scent, the trace, the very memory of it, must be entirely gone.”
So ponder this: when God forgives sin, He forgives it completely – as though it had never occurred. When we continue to brood over sin that God has already forgiven, we are in effect underestimating His love, doubting His grace, and discounting the scope of His pardon. It is as though we fear that the death of Jesus Christ is not adequate, that His blood is too weak to justify us – declare us innocent.
But accepting God’s forgiveness, on the other hand, aligns our thinking to God’s Word. It separates our sin from our forgiveness by the distance of infinity.
The man I quoted earlier went on to say this: “Meditating on the truth of Psalm 103:12 dispersed my noxious thoughts. As my mind cleared, so did the traffic, and I traveled on with joy.”
Beloved: may we, by God’s grace learn to do the same.
Is God trying to mold you – and you are resisting his shaping influence? You may recall that in Jeremiah 18 God told Jeremiah to visit a potter: “‘O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?’ declares the Lord. ‘Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.’”
In Jeremiah’s day a potter worked with a wheel turned by a pedal operated by the potter’s foot. The clay was thrown into the center of the wheel, but if the clay wasn’t precisely centered it became lopsided as the potter worked with it. So the potter would have to smash it down and start over. Then, he would shape the clay into a pot that pleased him.
In Jeremiah 18 God was the potter, and Israel was the clay. If God announced destruction on a nation and it repented, he would spare it. If he announced blessings to a nation and it forsook him, God would destroy it. The message was clear: though God had not yet chosen any Gentile nation, he might well turn to the Gentiles if they repented.
By the same token, though he had originally chosen Israel, he would surely destroy her if she continued down her wicked paths. Moreover, through Jeremiah God had been announcing destruction for Israel; but if Israel repented, God would relent. The clay was his, and he could shape it any way he chose.
Sadly and tragically the people responded to Jeremiah’s message by mounting a campaign of defamation against him (18:18). They started spreading lies about his character and behavior to discredit him. Clearly they were rejecting God’s offer of peace.
In response God told Jeremiah to return to the potter and buy a nice pot (Jeremiah 19). Jeremiah was to take it out to the place where broken pots were thrown and hurl it into the heap, shattering it. Under God’s direction Jeremiah informed the people that this was God’s intention for them.
How did the people react? Pashhur, who was “chief officer” among the priests of the temple, had friendless Jeremiah beaten and put in stocks, not only brutally wounding him, but also exposing him to public ridicule (Jeremiah 20). When Pashhur had Jeremiah released the next day, Jeremiah told him that God had given Pashhur a new name: “Terror on Every Side.”
And in the future, disaster would surround this man, and he would find out what it was like to have no friends, being hated by everybody – prophecy being fulfilled yet again.
As God gives us grace, may we allow him as the potter to have his way with us!
Ever felt a bit discouraged? Then consider the life of Thomas Watson. When the British monarchy was reinstated in 1660, a series of new laws stifled religious liberty. The Act of Uniformity, for example, required all ministers to use The Book of Common Prayer as a format for worship. Many non-Anglicans (“Anglican” refers to the Church of England) refused, and in August, 1662, over 2,000 of England’s finest ministers were ejected from their pulpits. Among them, Thomas Watson of Cambridge, who preached his “Farewell Sermon” on August 17, 1662:
“I have exercised my ministry among you for sixteen years and have received many demonstrations of love from you. I have observed your reverent attentions to the word preached. I have observed your zeal against error; and as much as could be expected in a critical time, your unity. Though I should not be permitted to preach to you, yet shall I not cease to love and pray for you; but why should there be any interruption made? Where is the crime? Some say that we are disloyal and seditious. Beloved, what my actions and sufferings for his majesty have been is known. I desire to be guided by the silver thread of God’s word and of God’s providence. And if I must die, let me leave some legacy with you before I go from you, some counsel. First, keep your constant hours every day with God. Begin the day with God, visit God in the morning before you make any other visit; wind up your hearts towards heaven in the morning and they will go the better all the day after! Oh turn your closets into temples; read the scriptures. The two Testaments are the two lips by which God speaks to us; this will make you wise unto salvation. Besiege heaven every day with your prayer, thus perfume your houses.”
Watson proceeded to gave his listeners 19 more “directions” then he ended, saying: “I have many things yet to say to you, but I know not whether God will give me another opportunity. My strength is almost gone. Consider what hath been said, and the Lord will give you understanding in all things.”
“Enemies spend the whole day finding fault with me; All they think about is how to do me harm. They attack from ambush, watching my every step and hoping to kill me. You have kept record of my days of wandering. You have stored my tears in your bottle and counted each of them.” Psalm 56:5-8
Discouragement is the occupational hazard of ministry, and many of God’s workers are disheartened by small crowds and meager results. Charles Spurgeon could teach them a lesson.
It isn’t that Spurgeon ever struggled with small crowds. Almost from the beginning, multitudes flocked to his feet. When he assumed his London pastorate in 1854, the church had 232 members. Soon so many were crowding his auditoriums that he sometimes asked his members to stay away the next Sunday to accommodate newcomers. He seldom preached to fewer than 6,000, and on one occasion his audience numbered almost 24,000 – all this before the day of microphones. During his lifetime Spurgeon preached to approximately 10,000,000 people.
He also became history’s most widely-read preacher. Today there is more material written by Spurgeon than by any other Christian author of any generation. The collection of his Sunday sermons stands as the largest set of books by a single author in the history of the church. He is called the “Prince of Preachers.”
But ironically Spurgeon himself is a testimony to the power of a small church. On Sunday, January 6, 1850, a blizzard hit England, and 15-year-old Charles was unable to reach the church he usually attended. He turned down Artillery Street and ducked into a Primitive Methodist Church, finding only a few people standing around the stove. Not even the preacher arrived.
A thin-looking man stood and read Isaiah 45:22 – “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth…” The speaker, groping for something to say, kept repeating his text. Finally, he spied young Charles in the back. Pointing his bony finger at the boy, he cried, “Look, young man! Look! Look to Christ!”
The young man did look, and Spurgeon later said: “As the snow fell on my road home from the little house of prayer, I thought every snowflake talked with me and told of the pardon I had found.” Arriving home, his mother saw his expression and exclaimed: “Something wonderful has happened to you.” It had, proving that smaller ponds often yield the biggest fish.
“Does anyone remember how glorious this temple used to be? Now it looks like nothing. But cheer up! Because I, the Lord All-Powerful, will be here to help you with the work just as I promised. … My Spirit is right here with you.” Haggai 2:3-5
You might have noticed that over the past few weeks I’ve been sharing some brief biographical snapshots of some key figures in church history. I have enjoyed reading these so much I’ve decided to keep doing this for the near future.
Many of you have heard of Hudson Taylor – a man used mightily of God in China. One of my all-time favorite books was a biography of Taylor’s life called Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret.
Hudson Taylor envisioned a missionary task greater than any since the days of Paul – the evangelization of China. Toward that end he established the China Inland Mission (CIM) on June 27, 1865. It was the dream of his life, for even before age five he had told friends he wished to be a missionary to the Orient.
He wasn’t actually converted to Christ, however, until years later. His mother long prayed for his conversion, but with no apparent results. One day while a hundred miles from home she felt unusually burdened for him. She withdrew to her room, locked the door, and began to pray earnestly. She didn’t stop till convinced he had been saved.
Meanwhile Hudson, 17, was at home with nothing to do. He wandered into his father’s library, shuffled through some papers, and came to a leaflet that began with an interesting story. He read the story, then kept reading. It was a gospel tract, and as Hudson later put it, “Light was flashed into my soul by the Holy Spirit. There was nothing in the world to be done but to fall down on one’s knees and [pray for salvation].”
After a stint in medical school Taylor sailed for China. He was immediately engulfed in financial crises, language difficulties, homesickness, and personality conflicts with other missionaries. Trying to dye his hair black (to blend in with the Chinese), he was injured when the top blew off the ammonia bottle. More troubles followed, and over the next years, Taylor grew very depressed – (something not uncommon to men and women entering the ministry).
Then he received a letter from his friend John McCarthy, who told him to try “ … abiding, not striving nor struggling.” McCarthy went on: Christ himself is “the only power for service; the only ground for unchanging joy.”
Hudson said, “As I read, I saw it all. I looked to Jesus; and when I saw, oh, how the joy flowed. As to work, mine was never so plentiful or so difficult; but the weight and strain are gone.” New voltage surged through his life and ministry as though he were connected to a heavenly power plant. By the time Hudson Taylor died, CIM had 800 missionaries in China!
John 15:15 says: “I am the vine, and you are the branches. If you stay joined to me, and I stay joined to you, then you will produce lots of fruit. But you cannot do anything without me.”